Adventures In The Screen Trade

Now available as an ebook for the first time! No one knows the writer's Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the bestselling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood's inner sanctums...on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films...into the plush offices of Hollywood producers...into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman...and into his own professional experiences and creative thought processes in the crafting of screenplays. You get a firsthand look at why and how films get made and what elements make a good screenplay. Says columnist Liz Smith, "You'll be fascinated.

From the Oscar-winning screenwriter of All the President's Men, The Princess Bride, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, here is essential reading for both the aspiring screenwriter and anyone who loves going to the movies. If you want to know why a no-name like Kathy Bates was cast in Misery, it's in here. Or why Linda Hunt's brilliant work in Maverick didn't make the final cut, William Goldman gives you the straight truth. Why Clint Eastwood loves working with Gene Hackman and how MTV has changed movies for the worse,William Goldman, one of the most successful screenwriters in Hollywood today, tells all he knows. Devastatingly eye-opening and endlessly entertaining, Which Lie Did I Tell? is indispensable reading for anyone even slightly intrigued by the process of how a movie gets made.

Thomas's unfinished novel of a Welsh boy's adventures in London is accompanied by twenty short stories.

The big names and big games are all in this story of the 1987 New York Baseball Season. Two pros pool their talents for an inside ticket to a season's worth of legends and louses. "Read the book Steinbrenner and a host of other sports notables will want to burn. It's a beauty".--Elmore Leonard.

A Nazi conspiracy in the heart of modern-day Manhattan—the blockbuster New York Times bestseller that became the classic film thriller. At Columbia University, Thomas “Babe” Levy, a postgrad history student and aspiring marathon runner, is working to clear his late father’s name after the scandal of his suicide, triggered by the McCarthy hearings and accusations of Communist affiliations. In Paraguay, Dr. Christian Szell, former Nazi dentist and protégé of Josef Mengele, has been in exile for decades. Infamous as the “White Angel of Auschwitz,” he’s leaving his South American sanctuary to smuggle a fortune in gems out of New York City. Meanwhile, in London’s Kensington Gardens, an international assassin known only as Scylla has completed a hit. A man with too many secrets and twice as many enemies, Scylla has become a target himself, with only one place left to turn. Then, when Babe’s revered older brother, Doc, pays him a fateful and unexpected visit, it sets in motion a chain of events plunging Babe into a paranoid nightmare of family betrayal, international conspiracy, and the dark crimes of history. Now, the marathon man is running for his life, and closer to answering a single cryptic and terrifying question: “Is it safe?” William Goldman’s Marathon Man was adapted by the author for the award-winning 1976 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. Upon its publication, the Washington Post called it “one of the best novels of the year,” and it remains a powerful, horrifying read. In the words of #1 New York Times–bestselling author Harlan Coben: “I found myself racing through it. You could have put a gun to my head, and I wouldn’t have been able to put [Marathon Man] down.” This ebook features a biography of William Goldman.

Goldman scrutinizes the Hollywood movie scene of the '90s in these essays.

Discover the secrets of Hollywood storytelling in this fascinating collection, in which fifty screenwriters share the inside scoop about how they surmounted incredible odds to break into the business, how they transformed their ideas into box-office blockbusters, how their words helped launch the careers of major stars, and how they earned accolades and Academy Awards. Entertaining, informative, and sometimes startling, Tales from the Script features exclusive interviews with film's top wordsmiths, including John Carpenter (Halloween), Nora Ephron (Julie & Julia), John August (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and David hayter (Watchmen). Read along as: Frank Darabont explains why he sacrificed his salary to preserve the integrity of his hard-hitting adapta-tion of Stephen King's novella The Mist. William Goldman reveals why he's never had any interest in directing movies, despite having won Oscars for writing All the President's Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Ron Shelton explains why he nearly cut the spectacular speech that helped cement Kevin Costner's stardom in Bull Durham. Josh Friedman describes the bizarre experience of getting hired by Steven Spielberg to adapt H. G. Wells's classic novel War of the Worlds—even though Spielberg hated Friedman's take on the material. Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) analyzes his legendary relationship with Martin Scorsese. Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) reveals why the unrelenting hype around his multimillion-dollar script sales caused him to retreat from public life for several years. Tales from the Script is a must for movie buffs who savor behind-the-scenes stories—and a master class for all those who dream of writing the Great American Screenplay, taught by those who made that dream come true.